Trabajar en “la cocina del mundo”. La evolución de los salarios en la industria cárnica rioplatense: el caso de LEMCO-Anglo (Uruguay, 1890-1928)

This paper provides new evidence on industrial wages during a period of great dynamism in the Uruguayan economy. Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Uruguay developed a major meat industry that gained international prominence. Among the largest firms was the Liebig Extract of Meat Company (LEMCO)—renamed as Frigorífico Anglo in 1924—which played a central role in supplying this product to European markets. It also had a significant impact on the local labor market. While the company's role is well-documented, the characteristics of its labor remuneration remain unexplored. Using a novel dataset of employment records spanning 1890 to 1928, this paper builds new wage series in order to achieve two primary objectives: first, to analyze the evolution of nominal and real wages; and second, to examine the wage differentials based on skill, age, and gender. The findings offer new insights into labor market dynamics within one of Uruguay's most transformative sectors.